We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Widdop a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I guess I’ve always known. As a kid I was always making up stories in my head, drawing pictures of characters and such, and acting out their adventures with neighborhood friends and kids from school. And as I got older, I just started to take those creative impulses more seriously, really sit down and do the work, flesh the characters out, put the stories onto paper, and truly bring it to life.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m an author and a filmmaker, probably best known for my Velcro the Ninja Kat series. I was first published in 2012, and have since released five novels so far in the Ninja Kat series, including adaptations of the series in comics and film. I also produced my first movie in 2012, and have made five movies so far as well.
Most of my stories take inspiration from my personal life in some form. For instance, the Ninja Kat books are based on my real life pets that I had growing up, capturing their personalities and placing them in an epic fantasy setting. And a number of my movies take inspiration from personal experiences in my life, which I feel in turn helps make them more relatable to the audience as well. I also like to draw inspiration from my love for anime, which can often be seen in many of my stylistic choices.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Seeing the finished product is always a rewarding experience. So many hours, days, months, even years go into every single project. So to finally see it all come together and be able to say that it’s done, it always feels like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
If you have friends or family who are pursuing creative arts, please help them out. Buy their product. Share their links. Leave reviews. Help spread the word on their projects. Indie artists tend to only have so many resources, and the more people who are willing to help them out, the better. Show your support. Talk up their projects. Every single time I see an indie creative on my feed post something new, I always share it out to my feed. It’s just my natural immediate instinct. And I wish that more people felt that same immediate knee jerk reaction to help each other out like that.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.velcrotheninjakat.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/velcrotheninjakat
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Velcro_NinjaKat
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Chris_Widdop
Image Credits
Chris Widdop